Word: argumentative
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...fast approaching when Bush expects the nations that make up the U.N. Security Council to put up or shut up. To win them over, Powell needs to deliver an argument for attacking Iraq that is solid enough to override the reluctance gripping key capitals. And if he gets their backing, Bush is also likely to win something he needs almost as much: greater support at home. Polls show Americans would go to war, but they would feel a lot better about it with the U.N. behind them...
...inspector hunting biological and chemical weapons, provided the White House with an unanticipated boost when his Jan. 27 report to the Security Council gave Saddam's cooperation low marks and complained that Iraq had shown no "genuine acceptance" of full disarmament. That played beautifully into the Administration's fundamental argument that even if inspectors had all the time in the world, they would never prove a match for Iraq's cunning efforts to conceal its illicit arsenal...
This is the high-voltage line of argument that could blow away skeptics' doubts--or blow holes in Bush's entire case. Strong evidence of a link between Iraq and terrorists would make it easy for allies--and nervous American citizens--to support a war, but it's the hardest allegation to prove. Bush, who plainly believes it, gave the charge its sharpest articulation yet in his State of the Union address: "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda." Bush...
...remains-to-be-seen category." Some officials say what they've glimpsed of the Ansar info tends to look convincing only to those predisposed to believe it. Says an intelligence official: "If they're trying to compel people, that's not the place I'd rest my argument." Some in Congress say it will take more than the one-time visit to Baghdad by a one-legged al-Qaeda operative to convince them. Democrats who have heard the pitch tend to agree with Illinois Senator Richard Durbin: "What I have seen is so minimal that it seems like a stretch...
This particular application is one of the motivations behind Diamond’s new afterword to the book. In the new section, Diamond uses his theory to explore the underlying social processes by which weapons spread, ultimately reinforcing his original argument about why Europe emerged as the dominant world player...